What the fuck, you completely misread that.
Interstate Highways and similar systems are “successful” socialism, as far as I understand socialism, because they are a piece of tax-funded infrastructure that has outlasted and avoided issues that have proven inherent to soviet-style, communist nation-states.
Interstate Highways and similar systems are “successful” socialism, as far as I understand socialism
I must be blunt here: socialism is not about taxation. At all. Socialist communes don’t even require taxes or money to exist. Socialism is about workers’ relationship with work.
You don’t understand socialism then, it’s not “when the government does something”
As far as I’ve ever been aware, socialism is the use of tax dollars to provide goods or services beyond simply the military protection provided by feudal governments.
Would you use a monarch’s definition of democracy to define democracy?
Do you think that definition would be fair or even accurate?
Because you are using a capitalist definition of socialism, which is just as unfair and inaccurate.
Yeah, that’s definitely a usage of the word socialism I have heard, but it is not generally a definition most socialists or socialist parties would use and it has some issues in my opinion.
This is such a broad definition of socialism as to make it almost meaningless, as this definition fits every nation on earth today and most through history. ancient Rome used public money to fund public roads, subsidized grain for the poor, public entertainment and land grants for veterans, public aqueducts, and other public programs, yet this was 2000 years before the concept of socialism was really invented and I don’t think anyone is holding up ancient Rome as an example of a socialist society.
I would define socialism by two characteristics. One is control over the political economy by the proletariat (workers), as opposed to the bourgeoisie (capitalists/financiers/business owners). In a bourgeois run capitalist state, there is still publicly funded services, but they generally set up to benefit privately run industry (public highways, government subsidized research, police) or they are concessions won by the proletariat through class struggle (universal healthcare, social welfare programs).
The second characteristic is economic organization around common need, rather than around the pursuit of profits. This would require taking the means off production (factories, businesses, utilities, etc) out of the hands of the bourgeoisie.
Sorry mate, socialism isn’t that. Here’s a good place to start learning about what socialism is. check out Richard Wolff, a economics professor, on YouTube for some interesting lecturers about how it works in reality if you want to go a bit further.
As far as I’ve ever been aware, socialism is the use of tax dollars to provide goods or services
I’ve seen others comment but I’ll add my own two cents. You don’t know what socialism is, and that’s not a criticism of you, it’s just a fact.
What you’re describing is social democracy wherein governments allow a capitalist relationship to the means of production to exist while providing social programs and investing. Socialism and Capitalism are about the worker’s relationship to the means of production. Under capitalism Capitalists take money generated by worker’s surplus labor as profits and use these profits to create a government that will protect their power to continue stealing from their workers. Under socialism profits are not held privately but publicly, by worker’s or socialist governments that exist to redistribute the ill gotten wealth of the Capitalists.
It’s not about how many programs a government does or the taxes it collects, it’s about the workers relations to the means of production. The problem with social democracy, which Lenin pointed out over a hundred years ago in State and Revolution, is that by letting Capitalists exist they will not allow workers to take away their wealth and power democratically, they will use fascism to secure their wealth. Another problem is that these programs cannot exist for long because Capitalists are parasites and will do everything they can to privatize them and milk as much profit out of them as possible, for examples of this look at nearly every government program that exists in Europe and point to me one that works better now than it did 30 years ago before Capitalists had time to take cuts out of it, it’s a really big problem typically with healthcare programs in these countries.
Even by you’d definition of “socialism” being public infrastructure spending, how is the US highway system more successful than the Chinese High Speed Rail system?
That might be why everyone’s probably assuming I’m right-wing. I mentioned it (the highway system) with its criticisms because, while successful at remaining operational, the Chinese high speed rail system is, by virtue of being a rail system, much more efficient. It would be better if there were low-speed rail connections too, but as it is the Chinese high speed rail system is indeed a successful socialist(?)/socially-funded(?) intercity transit system. OIf course, the Chinese rail system has flaws like lines that lose billions of tax dollars every year (or rather the important part is that this says there aren’t enough riders on those routes), but the Interstates were often built through areas in the middle of nowhere b ecause it made construction companies a shitload of money.
In short, you’re right to mention the chinese rail, “succesful” in my eyes also meant longevity along with a national scale and the highways happen to be older.
Lines losing money is implying that the point of the lines is to make money. That is so staggeringly uninformed and capitalist minded it blows me away.
I will shock you by informing you most fish are bad at flying.
Turns out, that’s not what they were made for.
but as it is the Chinese high speed rail system is indeed a successful socialist(?)/socially-funded(?) intercity transit system.
It’s funny to call America’s highways socialist and then hedge your phrasing against China’s rail system.
More genuinely, would you like me to go through the Marxian conception of socialism in a non-combative way? It looks like you’re doing your best but just aren’t familiar with the topic.
“far as I understand socialism” We got a lot to unpack here.
Youbtalked about how all the post soviet states crumbled into disrepair. They are cpaitlaist. That is cpaitlaism. When they were not capitalist things got better. When they were cpaitlaist. Things got worse. This is basic stuff here.
Ever seen that chart of standard of living for the top 10% and bottom 40% of wealth in Russia since 1880?
I don’t remember where it was but I’ll explain.
1880 to the Soviet Union were completely unfair. 1990 to present was and is completely unfair. I am not going to argue in favor of capitalism because to capitalism I, specificly me as a person, am unprofitable. I would be killed in a cyberpunk dystopia.
During the Soviet Union, the standards of living were roughly equal, but dropped 66% below the standards of living the 10% experienced before and after.
According to a calculation, to reach a state of being secure from the climate crisis and have equal wealth, we would need to revert to the standard of living of 1960s America technologically.
I don’t like capitalism or hate socialism. I hate that the universe works in such a way that my lifestyle - no car, living with my parents, and writing on a modern computer with fiber internet access for a living, with no possessions individually worth more than $5000 and a net worth of basically zero - is not fair under capitalism AND impossible under the kind of world YOU want to live in.
You want to live in a world where my only niche in life is too luxurious for everyone else? Fuck you, I’ll just commit suicide.
There are lies, and then there are statistics, and trying to do living standard calculations about this shit with a 10% cutoff that’s including the feudal warlords who owned literally everything and were spending fuckoff amounts of money on fucking glass eggs is just dancing around the actual point here.
They went from a feudal partially industrialized backwater to space in the span of ~30 years, with a catastrophic war right in the middle. They operated for decades under siege from the rest of the world outside their relatively small and poor sphere.
I don’t like capitalism or hate socialism. I hate that the universe works in such a way that my lifestyle - no car, living with my parents, and writing on a modern computer with fiber internet access for a living, with no possessions individually worth more than $5000 and a net worth of basically zero - is not fair under capitalism AND impossible under the kind of world YOU want to live in.
You want to live in a world where my only niche in life is too luxurious for everyone else? Fuck you, I’ll just commit suicide.
Socialism is when no electronic treats? those devices you’re so protective of are almost definitely made in China or nearby already, what do you think the anti-China warmongering is going to result in if not a disruption of your treats?
your life sounds pretty miserable under capitalism, wild how we have a system which prioritizes the right of property owners to extract rents from people in perpetuity.
